How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing
list

GregLehey

This document provides useful information for people looking to
prepare an e-mail to the FreeBSD-questions mailing list. Advice and
hints are given that will maximize the chance that the reader will
receive useful replies.

This document is regularly posted to the FreeBSD-questions mailing
list.

1.Â Introduction

FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list maintained by
the FreeBSD project to help people who have questions about the normal
use of FreeBSD. Another group, FreeBSD-hackers,
discusses more advanced questions such as future development
work.

Note:

The term “hacker” has nothing to do with breaking
into other people's computers. The correct term for the latter
activity is “cracker”, but the popular press has not found
out yet. The FreeBSD hackers disapprove strongly of cracking
security, and have nothing to do with it. For a longer description of
hackers, see Eric Raymond's How To Become
A Hacker

This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice
from FreeBSD-questions (the “newcomers”), and also those
who answer the questions (the “hackers”).

Inevitably there is some friction, which stems from the different
viewpoints of the two groups. The newcomers accuse the hackers of being
arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers accuse the
newcomers of being stupid, unable to read plain English, and expecting
everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Of course, there is
an element of truth in both these claims, but for the most part these
viewpoints come from a sense of frustration.

In this document, I would like to do something to relieve this
frustration and help everybody get better results from
FreeBSD-questions. In the following section, I recommend how to submit
a question; after that, we will look at how to answer one.